1 Answer
1

It's just example code, so I wouldn't rely too heavily on it. The destroy function is for burning coins (think decreasing the money supply). If you want to construct an ERC20 compliant token use the proposed standard detailed here.

EDIT: Also, the reason you are probably not seeing the Burn() function from the example in deployed ERC20 tokens is that one of the conditions an ERC20-compliant token is that the token supply be constant. Including functions like Burn() would disqualify a token from being labeled ERC20.

It's weird that Ethereum.org itself had suggested a non ERC20 compliant code? By the way, I have followed your link and tried to compile it but I'm getting this error " "throw" is deprecated in favour of "revert()", "require()" and "assert()". - seems this code isn't updated anymore?
– Michael LawrenceOct 1 '17 at 8:36